Amelia Cheryl Monet, a thirty year old New Orleans entrepreneur had successfully turned an abandoned warehouse in the Big Easy into Mova's Jazz Café, the hottest chill-out lounge in the South. That is until August 29, 2005, when Hurricane Katrina destroyed not only the physical structures of the city, but many long-held dreams. Determined to keep her club alive amidst the mass exodus of business from New Orleans, Amelia thought the solutions to her problems would be within the musical incantations of a mysterious stranger. Enter London Zao Thomas, a wealthy womanizing jazz man from Chicago. Whose charismatic charm and good looks were accented by his mastery of the guitar. His talents would seemingly be the spark needed to not only revitalize Amelia's Café, but her life as well. London would eventually end up taking Amelia on a journey of love and pain that would turn out to be more destructive than any hurricane could ever be.

Mova's Jazz Cafe

INVISIBLE IN NEW ORLEANSBy ROGER T. MAXEY

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2011 Roger T. Maxey
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4502-9460-7

Chapter One

"Someday My Prince Will Come" -Miles Davis

The storm passing over The Big Easy gave no signs of calming its tears over the moving traffic below. Its fury was certainly unrelenting for Amelia's white Four-Runner that was traveling down the narrow brick pathway to Mova's Jazz Cafe.

Tonight would mark the one-year anniversary of the reopening of her café since the unspeakable destruction that occurred five years ago.

Amelia made a conscious effort not to think of the hurricane that had caused her so much pain, for to say its name gave it life and credit for destroying her club's existence. Mova's Jazz Café was still breathing. She just had to figure out a way to let the people know that.

Prior to August 29th, 2005, the café that Amelia had started up from a life insurance policy had been riding the wave of success for almost five years. She had raised the café from an abandoned warehouse in its infancy to the hottest chill-out lounge in the South.

There wasn't a more beautiful sight to see than Mova's, firing on all four cylinders: the kitchen cranking out the food, the bar feeding the fishes, the music mesmerizing the listeners, and the people flooding the dance floor. Those earlier prosperous times made her feel like being a club owner was her destiny. But the life that Amelia had breathed into the establishment seemed to be slowly slipping through the cracks of Katrina's destruction.

Amelia brought her SUV to a stop next to the large blue metal door that was the back entrance to her café and loft upstairs.

The full moon, combined with the swirling sheets of rain, created a strange vibe that didn't sit well with her. It wasn't the bad weather that was bothering her, so much as the uneasy intuition of another presence around her. For the past couple of days, her normal daily activities had been marked by the eerie feeling of someone or something watching her. She tried to ignore her suspicions due to the enormous pressure that she was under lately, but now, as she waited in her car for the rain to stop, she couldn't help but feel an ominous shadow around her.

Amelia, seeing that there was no reprieve in sight from the rain, decided to go outside. Going to have to make a break for it, she said to herself, reaching for her umbrella in the glove compartment.

Grabbing the handle, her eyes caught the shape of someone in the back alley. Amelia quickly turned around to see who was watching her, but there was nothing but blackness in the dimly lit alleyway. Sitting back in her seat, she let out a deep sigh of exasperation.

"Get it together, girl, your mind is playing tricks on you. That's what you get for coming down the back entrance to avoid an ex-boyfriend," she angrily mumbled to herself. Perhaps, the bad sensations she had been experiencing of late was her sixth sense telling her that it was too soon to bring Mr. Jabez Hamilton back into her life.

Amelia had recently hired her old boyfriend as extra security at night, due to the increased crime level in New Orleans. Certain parts of the city had become battlefields for drug dealers and gang bangers trying to reestablish their turf following the devastation of the hurricane. Luckily, none of the violence had spilled over into the tourist areas around the downtown and warehouse district, where her café was located. But she wasn't taking any chances.

Amelia had known Ja for almost eleven years. She met him when she was just a college sophomore. Their friendship blossomed into the total spectrum of feelings that came with a college relationship. But with age came wisdom, and although their physical relationship carried on further than their romance, she had finally moved on past his infidelities even if he had not.

Amelia often thought that, had she known Ja still had such strong feelings for her, then she might not have hired him to work at the café. His advances on her were tired and borderline harassing. Tonight was a big night for her reemergence as a club owner in New Orleans. She didn't have time to reminisce about how it was, or how it was not, going to be with an ex-lover. So, as she stepped out into the rain, she started to recite a short prayer for the evening:

"Help this to be a successful night of entertainment. Let Five & ½ Deep be the band that I'm looking for to fill my club again." Smiling, she looked up into the sky, and recited the most important part of her prayer. "And please, God, don't let Ja answer the door. I do all of these things in honor of my father and in your name, Lord Jesus, Amen."

Spur-of-the-moment prayers and mantras were nothing new to Amelia; she had been doing them since she was a child. They helped to keep her motivated and focused on the task at hand. And never, at any other point in her life, did she need a prayer to come to fruition more. Amelia recited the words several times as she walked up to the red, brick-covered entranceway. Removing her keys from her purse, Amelia could hear the heavy dead bolt sliding back. No, no, no. The door opened and standing before her was a man dressed in an all-black suit that was soaking wet. His heavy breathing indicated that he had rushed from somewhere.

Damn, Ja, Amelia said to herself. What the hell are you doing working the back entrance? As Amelia watched him swing back the huge door, she remembered how he used to be the big man on campus at Tulane University, around the same time she was across town at Xavier. She, like so many other young college girls, had fallen victim to his football-star power and his Kappa Alpha Psi pretty-boy charm.

In Amelia's own defense, she thought, what nineteen-year-old girl wouldn't have been impressed with a six-foot-six muscle man, who possessed a powerful square jaw that could have easily been chiseled from an image of superman. But she was a thirty-one-year-old woman now. His silly womanizing ways were not what she was looking for anymore.

"Hey, Ja," Amelia said with her best fake smile. "What's it looking like in there? Do we have a full house or what?"

"Hi, beautiful," Ja replied with a grin that was spread from ear to ear. "It's still early. Five & ½ Deep is warming up. I'd say we've got a minimal crowd right now."

Amelia let out a deep sigh. Not the news she wanted to hear at all. The group in question was a five-member brass band that had one wicked seventeen-year-old drummer, hence the name Five & ½ Deep. They were one of the hottest local talents prior to the storm and they usually brought with them a huge New Orleans following. When they played, the snare-drum precision combined with the power of the tuba, and other wind instruments, gave an authentic rawness to their sound. But it would be all for naught if there was no one there to hear them.

"Katrina, you bitch, you may not have flooded me out, but you're going to be the end of me just the same," Amelia whispered to herself.

"What's that, baby girl?" Ja said.

Amelia looked at Ja with the fury of a woman scorned. "Ja! I've told you before. My father is the only one who can call me his 'baby girl,' so retire that phrase from your rolodex."

She normally kept her emotions in check, but sometimes her Creole spice could spring out and bite. There were certain topics, like the one just...